


keep you warm (wanna keep you all)

by johnny-and-dora (sian_jpg)



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, B99 Fall 2019 Fic Exchange, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 15:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21273449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sian_jpg/pseuds/johnny-and-dora
Summary: (“Thermodynamic equilibrium.” She’d grinned as he’d offered to warm up her hands on a coffee date a million years ago. He’d never found a use for his hidden talent as a walking space heater before they started dating. Now, here, everything’s always too warm and completely off balance.)or, florida man really misses his girlfriend.(prequel to 4x01, written for the b99 fall fic exchange 2019)





	keep you warm (wanna keep you all)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sandylovesfandoms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandylovesfandoms/gifts).

> the prompt i chose was "jake pining over amy looking so cute all wrapped up in scarves" - i think it got away from me a little bit, but i hope you enjoy anyway!

Today, Jake thinks as he buries himself in Larry’s stupid uncomfortably warm bed wearing Larry’s stupid clothes and Larry’s stupid heartbreak, officially sucks.

Considering he’s spent the past few months living in the sunshine state, his average disposition has been anything but sunny; the tepid, swamp-like purgatory of his seemingly everlasting stint of witness protection makes it hard to feel anything other than sweaty and heartbroken. And he’s been trying to stay positive, he really has – he’s chasing leads locked away in his secret storage locker whenever he can and he’s got a contraband grainy photo of her for when he really needs it and he lies awake reassuring himself that the squad are doing everything they can to get them home.

But today especially, royally sucks; today is a hot tub burrito kind of day, a day that can’t even be improved by getting drunk and renting Die Hard or building up his case on Figgis or doing something intensely ridiculous with his hair. Today is one of those days where he knows Holt will invent an issue with their shared fence later just to check up on him, which is guaranteed to cause a whole maelstrom of guilt and awkwardness that he really isn’t equipped to deal with right now.

Because today, as the little Google doodle so obnoxiously cheerfully reminded him earlier this morning before he threw his phone across the room, is the first day of fall.

He promised Amy he’d be back before the end of summer.

He thought he knew what it was like to miss home. Six months undercover wasn’t exactly a walk in the park (especially as it had the opposite intended effect and only made his slightly debilitating crush on a certain co-worker even stronger), but now he thinks he’d take being tech support for the mafia in a heartbeat over this totally new kind of personal hell.

In the first few weeks, the list of things he missed was simple; Amy, working cases, his mom, New York pizza, the rest of the squad and Amy again.

But now, five months in, Jake has become a seasoned professional in making elaborately and ridiculously long lists of all the things he misses. He lies on top of a bed that feels too big and stares at the damp creeping in from the corners of Larry’s bedroom and watches the slow wistful spin of the ceiling fan and makes himself sick making lists.

Lists of witty lines he loves to say when he finally catches a perp. Lists of the weird foods Charles is always gushing about in his daily email blasts. Lists of things he wants to do to Figgis if he – _when_ he finally escapes this hell hole. It helps, sometimes. Sometimes he thinks it hurts more than anything else.

It’s this terrible wonderful oxymoron, a word he only learnt because his girlfriend, among the billion million other amazing tiny things he loves about her, is a walking dictionary. It’s agony and it’s relief and it fills all the emptiness for a little while but in the end, it always makes it worse. And yet he can’t stop himself. What else is there to do?

(“Get a job.” The voice of reason in his head that always sounds a bit like Holt chimes in. He ignores it.)

Five months in, everything he misses about Amy can’t even fit on one list anymore – she has her own entire mental subcategory. In different circumstances, he likes to think that she’d be proud of his organisation skills – that helps, a little bit. The idea that when they’re finally reunited at the airport or in an epic shootout he’ll tell her that he finally understands the power of list-making in-between kisses and she’ll find it _stupid_ hot.

Five months in, trying to stay positive means a moment of content in getting to start a new list - fall themed things he misses about his girlfriend. The luxury hot cocoa that she gets out on special occasions and the way she’s taken to always having a packet of mini marshmallows lying around especially for him. The way she always gets excited when September arrives because of all the stationary sales and the chance to add to her binder collection. The piles and piles of thick winter coats and comforters and scarves she gets out of storage practically the second the first leaf drops to the ground.

He’s struck by a vivid memory of her looking unfairly adorable all wrapped up in her hat and scarf and his leather jacket while it was barely less than 50 degrees outside. Another one of her lecturing him on how toffee apples didn’t count as part of a healthy and balanced diet. He’s overwhelmed with Amy, the way she holds his hand on walks and laughs at his dumb jokes and makes him want to see the best in people, even be a better person just so he can come closer to deserving her.

(_“Thermodynamic equilibrium.” _She’d grinned as he’d offered to warm up her hands on a coffee date a million years ago. He’d never found a use for his hidden talent as a walking space heater before they started dating. Now, here, everything’s always too warm and completely off balance.)

It’s not like he expected Figgis to automatically drop into the FBI’s lap as soon as fall hit, but it stings anyway; another broken promise. Sure, he had no authority to make that promise in the first place, but now they’ve spent over a full summer apart and the self-doubt and dread twist him in knots, whispers that it’s his fault. It’s all too easy to believe that.

It doesn’t help that it’s Florida - birds still scream outside his window at ungodly hours and crazy thunder and lightning crash with an intensity that makes him think of cowering under a blanket as a kid until his Nana soothed him back to sleep. It does help that they’re still in the same time zone, that sometimes he can whisper good morning or goodnight knowing that her alarm just went off or that she just settled in to do the latest NYT crossword.

He wouldn’t wish this on anyone, which only makes him feel guilty whenever he wishes she was with him.

(“You have to stay.” He’d said while his life was in the process of being unravelled and he was numbly aware of a damp patch on his shirt from where she’d been crying and the entire world was falling apart. She’d nodded, and there was the silent promise – _I trust you_.)

She’s going to get them back home. It’s an unshakeable fact in his mind; Amy’s still waiting for him and she’s doing everything she can to get them back home. He can’t bear to imagine any alternative.

But for now, it’s the first day of fall. Another lost day there’s no convincing positive spin for and it feels like all he can do is lie here completely helpless and worry that he’s forgotten exactly what her laugh sounds like.

***

The romanticised ideals of New York in the fall he spent all that time building up in his head don’t even remotely compare to the real thing.

Today is a good day. Sure, it might be slightly more enjoyable if he wasn’t recovering from a bullet wound and they weren’t both exhausted from the night shift - but he has a dope cane now and he no longer looks like Vanilla Ice and Amy’s holding his hand and it’s so, unbelievably good to be back home.

(He can’t stop saying it – whenever friends ask him how he’s doing or the sweet old lady that runs the bodega next to his apartment says she hasn’t seen him in a while or one of the Santiago brothers sends him a text. _It’s good to be home.)_

With every step, it gets a little easier; with every step, he feels a little lighter, feels a little more comfort that both Larry Sherbet and the all the totally consuming bitter loneliness that came with him is dead and buried. The auburns and the yellows and the oranges that dot the trees are so welcoming and he can’t even begin to describe how great it feels to wear his leather jacket again.

And if that wasn’t good enough, Amy’s here. Ever consistent, always grounding, the constant that his entire universe gravitates around. Amy’s here and she’s wrapped up in a coat and scarf that almost completely dwarves her and she’s smiling and Jake thinks that means balance has been restored to the universe again, maybe just a little bit. He can’t stop himself from holding her tighter and pressing an almost possessive kiss to the top of her head, revelling in the way she flushes pink and her eyes crinkle with a quiet kind of joy.

“You wanna take a break?” She asks gently, squeezing his hand – they sit on a nearby park bench, all honeyed smiles and heart eyes and generally being one of those couples that are disgustingly in love but he no longer cares – given the circumstances, they’ve more than earned a free pass to be sickening.

“Okay, so we’ve done hot cocoa and stationary shopping and autumnal park walk. What else was on the list?”

“I think that was everything. I mean, the main thing was getting to do all that stuff with you.”

“Want to go home and watch Die Hard and make out on the couch, then?”

“I love you.” He says reverently as she grins – he can’t stop saying that either. It somehow feels like he needs to make up for all the lost ones in-between.

"Love you too.” She hums dreamily, lightly muffled by all the layers she’s wrapped up in yet not an ounce of the deliberate weight behind it is lost on him. It's magic, how easily she washes all the fear and self-doubt away. He squeezes her ice-cold hands, doing his best to warm them up - when her molten gaze meets his he grins and thinks _thermodynamic equilibrium _and_ I trust you _and_ It’s good to be home._

The list of things he misses about Amy gets left behind in a storage locker in Coral Palms – but the list of things he loves about her only grows and grows.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! find me on tumblr @johnny-and-dora <3  
also shout out to the birds that screamed directly outside my window every night for the two weeks i stayed in florida over the summer, you were a massive inspiration for this fic thanks babes xoxo


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